Once Upon a Time
by saoulbete
Summary: Once upon a time, she'd been promised a fairy tale ending. Once upon a time, they'd had forever in front of them. But that was a long time ago.


She reaches for the bottle next to her, looking behind her briefly at the clock on her nightstand, and deciding that she has plenty of time to finish what's left of the whiskey. She takes a long swig from the bottle, chasing it with another sip of cola, and reclines back. The game is playing on the television in front of her, but she doesn't even notice when Garciaparra hollers about a grand slam. It's just a comforting voice playing in the background. Noise to make her feel not so alone. She takes another long swig from the bottle, gauging the time, and how drunk she'll still be after she showers and gets on the T in the morning. She's not quite _there_ yet – still sober enough to know that she'll wake up and manage to walk a straight line to the stop, and not have the comforting numbness of the alcohol to make the first few hours of her job bearable.

It's so routine, so boring, so mundane. And she likes it that way. Once upon a time, she had enjoyed action, excitement, intrigue. Now, now she was content to sit behind a desk and process evidence. There was something about her that enjoyed it. The same side of her that enjoyed the long, slow burn of the whiskey down her throat. The self destructive side that had always lurked under the surface, tempered by external factors. But now – now it's unchecked and allowed to run free. She had brought all this on herself, and she likes that feeling, in some sort of sick, twisted way. She drinks because her life is miserable, and her drinking makes her misery greater, and she feeds off of the cycle of self-destruction, and in it's own way, it's the only thing keeping her alive.

Somewhere, her phone rings and she ignores it, knowing that it was only her mother or one of her brothers, doing a weekly check-in call. They'd tried – they really had – to stop this before it became _this. _Some small corner of her brain feels bad for it – knowing that she hurt them, disappointed them, and at the same time, it just adds to that self-loathing that drives her these days. She's at a frantic race for the bottom, wanting nothing more than to fuck her life up in ways that people could only dream about. Or nightmare about, she ponders, wondering if nightmare could even be used as a verb. She reaches out a hand towards her phone, instinct and alcohol driving her. She's halfway through a text to a number she refuses to delete before the realization hits her.

It's the same realization that hits her a dozen, a hundred, a million times a day, and she thinks she should be used to it by now. It's been a year. One year, two months, and thirteen days. She thinks that she should have gotten over this, and that she's so weak that she hasn't – she takes another long swill, drunk enough that the chaser doesn't matter. She can't help it though, the little things like this – a silly text of a silly question _just because._ Just because she knows that she'd get an answer. Once upon a time, she'd have been able to send a text asking about if a word could be used as a verb, and get a whole paragraph of a response of the etymology, evolution, and variations of the word. Once upon a time, she could have rolled over and asked that same question. Once upon a time, she would not be sitting there, drinking whiskey from the bottle at eleven at night and trying to pace herself enough to still be drunk the next morning.

Once upon a time, she still had Maura.

Once upon a time, she'd been good enough – been the best. Once upon a time, she had been promised a fairy-tale ending. But that was a long time ago.

And now, she has her new friends. Johnnie, Jim, Jack and Jose. Now she has an empty apartment, that she'd stripped of everything but the bed and the television one night because she couldn't handle it. Couldn't stand looking at everything, couldn't handle the overwhelming onslaught of _everything_ that it brought up in her. It still exists, shoved into a closet, and locked away. She can't get rid of it, but she can't stand to see it.

She'd tried, she really had. She had done well, too the first week. The second week. The realizations hadn't quite set in yet. There was still that period of shock, where it was still so fresh in her mind that it hadn't fully sunk in. She had simply kept on going through those first two weeks, doing her best to not let it affect her, or at least her ability to work. She spent the first two Fridays at the Robber with Frost and Frankie and Korsak. She watched the all star game and grilled and laughed with her family. She solved a case, and broke a lead on a case long gone cold.

And then the realizations hit.

They'd caught a case, and for the first time, she realized that she'd never get bored from a whole bunch of scientific language again. The first time that she realized that the décor in the morgue office was all different and all _wrong._ It no longer felt like a safe space, it felt like a claustrophobic, terrifying place. The first time that she realized that the other side of her bed was never going to be warm again. The first time that she realized that the sheets no longer smelled like Maura. The first time that she reached out to call a number that she knew would go to voicemail. The first time that she had come undone.

She had cried, really truly _cried_ for the first time in her life. And when she couldn't cry anymore, she had slept. And without Maura's soft, calming scent on the sheets to protect her, the nightmares came. Never the same one, but they all ended with the same scene. A shout, a gunshot, frantic running screeching to a halt at five feet two impeccably dressed inches splayed out on the pavement, white sidewalk quickly staining red. She should have been able to stop it. She should have been aware of it. She should have known that there was nowhere for the perp to have run, that he had to have been hiding somewhere. The uniformeds had gotten to the crime scene within minutes, the parking garage only had one exit. She should have seen the door for the stairwell left slightly ajar, should have known it would have attracted Maura's curiosity. She should have been good enough to stop it.

She shudders slightly, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around herself as she takes another long swig. Once upon a time, she would have been there to save her. Once upon a time, they'd have forever in front of them. But that was a long time ago, now.

So she drinks. She falls into the opposite of what she'd always wanted. She's fallen into this routine – a word that once upon a time, she'd considered one of the few things too vile to say. She wakes up, she showers, she staggers to the train, and goes to work. She spends the day, still drunk from the night before, being bolstered at lunch, processing evidence. She doesn't mind it. It's nice, mundane, it doesn't make her think. She doesn't like to think much these days. She clocks out, stops at the packie by the T, and goes home to start drinking. It's the only thing that keeps the nightmares at bay. Or rather, the only thing that keeps her from remembering them in the morning.

It had started after the realizations, after the reality of it all had set in. She hadn't planned on it, but after three days with no sleep, she needed to do something. Once upon a time she would have gone for a run, gone to work and pulled extra hours, thrown herself into a cold case to take her mind off of things. Once upon a time, she would have called Maura, and no questions would be asked. But now, now she turns to a bottle of whiskey to make her forget. It's easier, and she's always liked the path of least resistance. One night turned into two, turned into three, turned into a week, turned into a routine. Something, somewhere, some sick, dark corner of her mind that she wishes she could remove, tells her _It takes 28 days to form – or break – a habit._ In that perfect, amazing, matter-of-fact voice that she could still hear gasping out her name whenever she laid back against the pillows. And she kept drinking, for all 28 of those days for the habit to form.

She could hear the whispers and rumors behind her back. She knew what they were saying, and she didn't care. She couldn't care anymore. There was nothing- no one – left to care about. She answered her mother, her brother's inquiries as to how she was doing with one word answers. She slowly retreated away from everyone – attempting at first to maintain a facade of being as "just fine" as she was claiming to be. And eventually, everyone else gave up too. They tried – they'd done their damndest to stop this. They did everything they could. Kidnapped her and took her out. Gave her tickets right behind home plate for the ALCS. Tried to bribe her with food. She'd spent a month with her mother living with her before even Angela recognized a lost cause for what it was. She knew she'd broken her mothers heart – she could see it every time she stopped in the cafe and got a coffee and her mother tried to talk – really talk with her.

She doesn't stay for coffee anymore. There were too many realizations there. Once upon a time, she'd laughed, and joked, and pretended to be flattered by Rondo's compliments. Once upon a time, they'd sat there while Stanley complained, the three of them flipping through magazines with too many pictures of white flowing frills, laughing and giggling and circling things they liked. And now, whenever she walks in there, she realizes, that nothing was ever going to be the same.

She'd done well in homicide too, for a while. She had managed, for a little while, to find the balance between work and booze. Frost and Korsak had done what they could to be there, be supportive. They covered for her when she disappeared into the bathroom for a moment to vomit – not because she had drunk too much, but because she hadn't drunk enough. And for a moment, things had seemed all right. Like they'd found this balance. But balance wasn't what she wanted. Balance was what was causing her to waste away. The self-destruction, that was all the nutrient she needed.

She reached the tipping point, one day in January, when Pike had been being Pike over an autopsy that she couldn't take it anymore. Everything had felt so _wrong._ There wasn't any trace of Maura left in the morgue. There was no sense of understated, but yet very expensive, feminine style, replaced by gaudy, tacky overtly masculine décor – an attempt to make up for something that Pike was sorely lacking. She had pointed out something on the body – a blemish that Maura would have never missed and she pointed it out. Noting that Maura would have never missed it was an unnecessary extra that she had to add. When Pike had replied with "While I offer my condolences for your saph-" voice dripping with condemnation she couldn't help it. She broke his nose. And one of his ribs. And when they finally dragged her off of him, she had her badge and gun in hand, fully ready to be done with this place, and all of it's realizations.

Once upon a time, she would have had a calming hand on her shoulder in moments like that. Once upon a time, she'd have looked at Pike and muttered a sarcastic comment about how outdated calling her a 'sapphist' was before walking away. Once upon a time, Pike wouldn't have been standing above her victim, missing the obvious. But that was a long time ago, and she'd found that instead of the firing she'd expected, she found herself listening to mutterings of _extraordinary circumstances,_ and relocated to the evidence locker, a place where she could quietly self destruct without causing any collateral damage.

And she destructs. Slowly, and surely, with every swig of the bottle, she does. It's been one year, two months, and thirteen days, and she's getting there. The five stages of grief her ass. It's been one year, two months and thirteen days, and the cooling early autumn weather shocks her as she opens a window, wanting nothing more than to escape the smell of herself, an unknown, foreign scent that irks some subconscious part of her brain that says this all wrong. She's getting there. Once upon a time, she'd wanted nothing more than to feel alive. Once upon a time, she'd be thinking up all kinds of great things to do in this interstitial time between the seasons when it was perfect at night. But that was a long time ago, and now, the only thing she wants is to be numb enough to forget about all the little realizations.

Once upon a time, this had been her favorite time of the year. Once upon a time, there was a date circled on a calender – just days away from this one. Once upon a time, she had sat outside in a yard at this time of year and watched Jo and Bass play – well Jo had played, Bass had kind of done-whatever tortoises do, with an arm wrapped around her waist and a head resting on her shoulders, thinking about how life couldn't be any more perfect. Once upon a time, she'd been promised a fairy tale ending, and the princess, and she'd known what it was like to truly _live. _

But that was a long time ago.

That was when she had Maura.


End file.
